Winter Quarters, page 15
Our army returned in haste to Zenodotium, which defied us behind closed gates. The legionaries were angry, and eager for plunder. They marched straight against the eastern gate, set up a battering-ram, and burst their way in. Marcus Crassus led them himself, on foot, waving a drawn sword; which was creditable in a man of his age and corpulence. But once the gate was down there was no serious fighting.
We cavalry took no part in the action, which was nothing but a skirmish. But it was the first fight the army had seen, and angry legionaries sacked the place very thoroughly, killing most of the inhabitants. In the evening they paraded outside the burning city. The few surviving citizens were auctioned off to the slave-dealers who accompany every Roman army, and after the prize-money had been distributed Marcus Crassus made an eloquent speech about the glory of Rome and the honour of bearing the Eagles so far towards the unknown east. Some of us thought he was making too much of what was really a very minor affair; but the soldiers answered with shouts of: ‘Hail to Marcus Crassus Imperator.’
This made it a most important ceremony, as I learned that evening when I visited cavalry headquarters. Publius Crassus had ordered wine to be distributed to all his officers. We went up in a long procession to congratulate him on the honour that had come to his family, while he sat beaming and handing out largesse to his grooms and servants. Imperator I already knew as a word meaning commander of an army; but it seems that no Roman may use it until he has been hailed with the title by his victorious troops on the battlefield. The sack of Zenodotium could hardly be called a battle; but plenty of hostile blood had been shed and it had certainly ended in victory. As Publius exclaimed with glee, his father was now equal to Caesar and Pompeius, the only other living Imperators. Everyone seemed delighted, though I agreed with Cassius Longinus, our quartermaster, who said sardonically: ‘Caesar conquered Ariovistus and his Germans. Pompeius conquered Mithradates of Pontus. Crassus has conquered Zenodotium, which until yesterday no one had heard of. If that makes him Imperator, we need another word to describe great generals.’
Then, after leaving garrisons in the cities we had won from the Parthians, the army marched back to Syria and dispersed into winter quarters.
It was still high summer, but much too hot for campaigning. Next year we would take the field really early, as soon as the grass began to grow. In the meantime the army would train, for after our taste of active service we could see that our recruits still had much to learn. The troops were glad to be back in friendly and luxurious Syria, whose citizens are accustomed to keeping on the right side of warlike invaders. It was sensible to split them into smaller bodies for training, and they liked that also. For though to fight under the eye of the commander-in-chief, who can reward brave deeds on the spot, is a very good thing, all veterans agree that it is more pleasant to train out of sight of superior officers.
Only at headquarters was there some discontent; senior officers, discussing the wasted campaign, spoke of stout, deaf, elderly Marcus Crassus as a figure of fun. He was better known as a money-maker than as a warrior, and I heard it whispered that the real object of dispersing the army was to wring contributions from all the wealthy cities of the east. But no soldier dislikes a well-filled war-chest; the rank and file approved of good old Crassus, who fed us well and saw that we had comfortable billets.
All through the appalling heat of late summer Acco and I laboured in the horse-lines. Our comrades would go on managing their chargers as though they were in Gaul, refreshing the panting beasts with cold spring water. In very hot weather cold water brings colic, and horses should drink only from troughs standing in the sun. So Nicanor had told us, and we believed him; but it was hard to persuade our comrades. By the beginning of autumn we were both exhausted. When the weather cooled, Publius Crassus granted us leave to visit Antioch for a rest.
After the sack of Zenodotium Nicanor had gone home. But the house of his father, Aristobulus, was one of the best known in the city, and we found it without difficulty. He was pleased to see us, and invited us to stay as his guests. Even Acco, who hated to be under an obligation to a stranger, thought this fair enough; for by our patronage Nicanor had found a well-paid post on the staff.
This was the first time since we entered civilisation that we had lived as guests. In Rome a lodging had been hired for us, and in Greece we had been soldiers on duty. But by now we were accustomed to city manners, and we found it easy to behave like our neighbours. We bathed in hot steam, for hours at a time; we took exercise by running and wrestling in a paved yard, instead of scrambling among the hills; at the dinner-table we played with elaborate food and listened to poetry, instead of first getting drunk and then quarrelling to prove our courage. In one particular only Acco stood firmly by our native custom, and through force of character persuaded me to follow him. In the gymnasium he would not strip naked; wearing trousers we wrestled and fenced with naked citizens, and until they were used to it crowds gathered to stare at the extraordinary sight (naked crowds, naturally, so that they seemed as odd to us as we did to them).
Nicanor was a gay young man, who enjoyed taking us round the taverns; though in the Greek manner we lay about for hours before a small jug of wine, and came home sober. In his native city Nicanor dared not visit low haunts; for his father would have heard of it. We lived very decorously.
Usually we dined at home. That was not exciting; but it was enjoyable all the same, for Aristobulus spoke fluent Latin and had plenty to say. We sat up in proper chairs, and the food was usually a good solid roast; which to us was much more comfortable than reclining on padded couches and nibbling at little morsels drowned in honey and wine.
If there were no other guests we were treated as members of the family, and our host’s wife and young children were present. The lady Glauce was stout and dark, and very talkative though not to us; for her only language was Greek, and she talked mostly of servants and the affairs of the kitchen. She was proud of her housekeeping, and related at length her triumphs in the vegetable market. I sat beside her. First I would repeat a few Greek compliments I had learned by heart; after thanking me she would begin on the price of lettuce, while the rest of the family listened enthralled, and I got on with my beef in silence.
There was a boy of ten, Damasippus, a tiresome youth with black curls down to his shoulders and long eyelashes with which he beckoned like a harlot. He already had a lover among the young men of the city, but he was out to capture one of us in addition. He spoke a few words of bad Latin, since he would be a citizen when he grew up; and he constantly offered to take one of us for a long walk alone. We dared not snub him for fear of offending his father, who thought this disgusting behaviour nothing out of the way. He never got either of us alone. We went walking with him when we could not avoid it; but always both together.
The remaining member of the family was the only daughter, Berenice; a quiet little girl of thirteen, dark and rather small for her age, with a serious screwed-up monkey-face set off by great liquid brown eyes. She spoke quite good Latin, for it was hoped to marry her to a real Roman from Italy, to increase the standing of the family.
‘I am undoubtedly a citizen,’ Aristobulus explained to us with a deprecatory smile, as though there were something absurd in a true Roman complaining of oppression. ‘I have a diploma to prove it, bearing the seal of the great Lucullus. But sometimes the publicans come down on the whole province, and then every rich merchant is marched off to the governor’s praetorium. My diploma gets me out for nothing, while my colleagues pay heavily for release. But they only arrest me in the first place because they think of me as a Greek; real Latin-speaking Romans are never arrested, and don’t pay even their legal share of the taxes. If I can get hold of a son-in-law who speaks nothing but Latin, a real Italian who can’t read the Greek alphabet, the officers of the law would not touch me if they saw me rob a caravan in the market square. In the provinces a true Roman can do anything.’
‘Would I do for your son-in-law? I don’t know the Greek alphabet, or the Latin either. But after this campaign I shall be a citizen.’ I said this with a smile at little Berenice, who screwed up her nose to laugh back.
‘You lack the true aroma of garlic, my noble Camillus. And the palm of your hand has been roughened by the sword-hilt. The man I am looking for must have soft hands, and a long fingernail to count money with. He will discuss expertly the fencing of gladiators, without knowing how to hold a sword,’ answered her father; for of course a young girl could not banter with men.
‘He must care nothing for politics, for nowadays politicians die suddenly,’ put in Nicanor, carrying on the joke. ‘But if he has a cousin a Praetor, or better still a Tribune, we can all laugh at the Law.’
‘Well, at headquarters you must see plenty of the right type,’ said Acco across the table. ‘It’s funny. In Gaul we think of all Romans as mighty warriors. Here in the east you see them as crooked financiers.’
‘That’s because we deal so much with Arabs, who are never anything but land-pirates; or with Parthians, who are warriors and nothing else. To us a Roman seems as fond of money as any Greek or Syrian.’
‘Are the Parthians such great warriors?’ inquired Acco. ‘In our army no one takes them seriously.’
‘I didn’t say they are great warriors,’ answered Nicanor, with the quizzical smile which was the signal that he was about to display his celebrated Attic wit. ‘I said they were nothing but warriors, which is the exact truth. They don’t know how to build or carve or write poetry; they can’t even govern themselves except by choosing one man to rule them absolutely. They can fight, but that’s all they are fit for. Oh, and of course they breed the most wonderful horses.’
‘They can’t fight Romans, and they know it,’ said the father with decision. ‘They proved they were afraid of you when they refused to help old Mithradates of Pontus. I don’t think you will conquer their whole empire, because there’s so much of it. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pass next winter in Seleucia.’
‘That’s very comforting,’ I said, rather bored with all this talk of warfare from an unarmed merchant. ‘We are warriors by trade and we enjoy a little fighting. But it’s always more fun to fight a weak enemy; and I have never yet plundered a real city. Yet if it’s going to be so easy it won’t be very interesting. Seeing strange places is really my hobby, and I am having my fill of it. By the way, is it true that when training is over the troops will be allowed to visit the groves of Daphne?’
‘I’m sorry, but I can tell you nothing about the groves of Daphne. You know how it is. If you live in a place all your life you somehow never have time to see the local sights,’ replied Aristobulus. I could tell from his frown that I had opened a subject he did not wish to discuss.
‘Of course. That is notorious, even in Gaul,’ I answered politely. ‘But apart from Daphne there are many famous sights in Antioch. As you know, I like visiting temples. Perhaps you know of someone who would have the leisure to take us round them?‘
Rather to our surprise, Berenice spoke up. ‘Let me do it, father. You are all so busy, you and Nicanor – don’t you remember, you said Nicanor couldn’t go off playing at soldiers any more, now you had so many orders to fill. But I know all the temples in the city, and all the legends, and I could translate the inscriptions. It will be good practice for my Latin. And if Damasippus came it would really be quite proper.’
She turned and said something in Greek to her mother, who beamed and nodded. Damasippus languished at Acco with his great brown eyes.
‘If you don’t mind going about with a child I am sure Berenice can help you,’ said her father with pride. ‘She’s a great one for temples, and knows all the old stories.’
Catching my eye, Acco shrugged his shoulders. It seemed that Daphne was something you did not mention to respectable citizens of Antioch. But in other places even a little girl, who could read Greek inscriptions and put them into Latin, would be better than nothing. He conveyed his thanks to the young lady in a speech of elaborate courtesy. I myself, like every other Gaul, speak more formally than the average Roman; but Acco never for a moment forgot that he was an ambassador of Gallic culture before the ignorant world.
Next time we got Nicanor alone, walking back from the gymnasium, we asked him why Daphne could not be discussed in the family circle.
‘Don’t you know what goes on there?’ he answered. ‘It all began more than two hundred years ago, with a temple and groves dedicated to the Pythian Apollo. There’s nothing the matter with him; he’s a very respectable sort of god, patron of dancing and poetry and such. Unfortunately, when our King Seleucus founded the shrine he decreed that all who worshipped there must be immune from arrest within the sacred precinct. So every rogue in Syria went there and laughed at the law. But when you come to think of it only one kind of rogue can earn a living in the garden of a temple – apart from the priests, of course. The brigands and burglars can live safe enough, but they can’t make money. So nowadays the grove of Daphne is the biggest brothel in the world.’
‘But every soldier in the army knows that,’ said I. ‘That’s why we’re all set on seeing it. I suppose that’s also why it’s out of bounds to all troops.’
‘That isn’t what I heard,’ Acco interrupted. ‘It isn’t all the army heard, either. Soldiers like brothels well enough, but they don’t have to look for them. Whores find their own way to an army.’ He paused as though arranging his thoughts, and continued in a more serious tone. ‘We heard – I mean a great many of us heard – that in Daphne you meet more than the girls who are kind for cash down. Are there not women there – ladies of birth – devotees who do what would otherwise be shameful to please Her, so that She may be gracious and bless the crops?’
Nicanor answered with a shrug: ‘In Antioch, when a woman is willing we don’t stop to ask why. But are you Romans still taking that kind of worship seriously? You’ve come to the right country then, for Syria is stiff with it. But only among the natives, you know, Syrians and Phoenicians and that sort of rabble. I believe they go in for it devoutly. As Greeks we think it funny, or disgusting.’
I was afraid that Nicanor’s sneer would make Acco think I had been gossiping about his affairs. But he answered sharply: ‘All men think it either funny or disgusting. But sooner or later they find out that their wives have been worshipping the Goddess all their lives, without bothering to let the men into the secret. Three years ago I would have laughed if anyone had suggested that my kin would slaughter a young girl to placate a bear, and that’s what happened to the girl I had hoped to marry. Do you know how your kitchen-slaves worship, when there are no men about?’
‘I see, and I’m sorry I was flippant,’ answered Nicanor with charming sympathy. ‘The women here, especially the native women, have rites of their own; and in the south I am pretty sure the Goddess is worshipped in the way you fear. Wise Greeks do not inquire into that ritual. But, believe me, all this has nothing to do with Daphne. That’s just a bawdy-house which has grown out of a sanctuary of Apollo.’
I thanked him, and said that in that case the place did not interest us. I was telling the truth, for all that we were mercenary soldiers far from home. Romans will sleep with anyone, though they are decently jealous of their wives; but in Gaul we have been taught to believe that continence is part of the self-control of a warrior, who should be able to live without women for years if need be; for on campaign our warriors may not touch even their wives. Since we left home neither Acco nor I had stooped to commerce with a harlot.
All the same, something in the air of Syria breathes of love. The women have a sparkle unknown in the west, and because of it the men guard them the more fiercely. The sky of Antioch is filled with the urgent cooing of doves; dark eyes flash through flowing kerchiefs, and slim wrists under massy bracelets beckon to adventure. The Greek swaggers back from the gymnasium with his hand on the shoulder of a giggling little urchin, but the Syrians are all male or all female.
It was all the stranger to wander through such a garish crowd of lustful bodies under the guidance of a serious and sexless little girl. But Berenice made a good guide for foreigners genuinely interested in the wonders of a great city. She knew Antioch’s history, and could repeat all the tales of shape-changing and miraculous intervention which Greek poets tell of their gods. For it seems to me that the Greeks will babble about everything their gods have done, telling it casually even to foreigners; it is only the things men do for the gods, the manner of their worship, that is a mystery revealed only to initiates.
Antioch is a beautiful place, and rich too. But I don’t think it has ever been a true city, a community for which citizens will die on the battlefield. It was founded at the command of an absolute king, and now it is happy to be ruled by foreigners who collect the taxes and do any fighting that is needed. As you go round the shrines you feel something missing; this was built by King Antigonus, and that endowed by King Seleucus; you never reach the heart of the place, the spot where the gods of the city will inspire defenders to hold out when hope has gone. Rome breathes that sacrificial defiance from the Capitol, though now she has no enemies within a month’s journey; and on the Acropolis you can feel the menace from Persians and Spartans, though the city of the Maiden, after yielding to many foes, no longer defends herself. The great citadel on Mount Silpius was built to house the bodyguard of a foreign king, and the whole city is without honour. I soon grew bored with looking at the monuments of this gaggle of merchants and slaves.
Acco, to my surprise, enjoyed it. But that was because he enjoyed the company of Berenice. She was an earnest little girl, and he was an earnest young man; both saw the world as a gymnasium for the immortal gods, and devoted much thought to defining the correct attitude of honourable men and women, who must obey and worship these gods without necessarily approving their actions.
